


we'll always get to choose

by nightcap



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 1940s, AU, Alternate Universe, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, M/M, have you heard new york by sara lov, i am just very sad, kind of, stevebucky - Freeform, there are many
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 13:01:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1780063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightcap/pseuds/nightcap
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know what happens next: there is never really a happy ending, but there never is an ending anyway, so you can hardly be blamed. And, look here – here are different ways it plays out, but it is always the same, isn't it: Steve is in Bucky’s arms, and Bucky is on the bridge, no, Steve is on the bridge, and they are both falling.</p><p>or:</p><p>Steve and Bucky are in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we'll always get to choose

**Author's Note:**

> a pastiche of [happy endings](http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~rebeccal/lit/238f11/pdfs/HappyEndings_Atwood.pdf) by margaret atwood. let's hope she never finds this.

Steve and Bucky meet.

You know what happens next – See. There were never that many ways it could end, after all.

**A.**

Steve and Bucky are in love.

**B.**

Steve and Bucky become best friends and live together. They go off to war, and neither ends up quite the same. It ends on a train. They both fall.

**C.**

Steve and Bucky become best friends and live together. Bucky goes to work and comes back with soot on his shoulders, and Steve pours him glasses of water and makes dinner. Bucky looks him in the eyes and tells him he doesn’t have to.

Steve falls in love with Bucky, and looking at his grin hurts, so he pours him glasses of water, and makes dinner and the bed, and draws so many pictures that charcoal is always, always, on his hands. Steve falls in love with Bucky but Bucky doesn’t fall in love with Steve, Bucky falls in love with every girl he ever sees, goes soft-eyed at the blondes and dreamy at the brunettes, and Bucky doesn’t fall in love with Steve.

**D.**

They go to war, and come back, and Bucky is in love with the first girl he sees, no, the second girl, no, the third girl. They get married, and have three children, and they are happy.

**E.**

Bucky goes off to war. Steve goes with him. There is a bomb, a fluke, and neither of them go home.

**F.**

Bucky is older, by a year, and he falls in love with Steve. Steve has known him too long to know what that means, but he finds out, later: it means fireworks overhead and anger contorting his face and a human shield, warm, ready, always over him. Steve is too young to know what that means, but he starts to learn when they’re both on the battlefield, when Bucky is still older by a year but also smaller.

Bucky falls in love with Steve, but Steve doesn’t really know until the bar, in England, when they’re sitting on stools, knees just touching, beer foam on Bucky’s upper lip. Bucky kisses him, and no one quite looks at them the same way, after – but it’s not really the same anyway, so everything hardly matters.

**G.**

Bucky grabs Steve’s hand, but part of the train crumbles, and they both fall. Years pass. People visit the memorial and the Arlington Cemetery, where there are two empty graves side by side. Somebody leaves an American flag, and somebody else leaves a mostly-empty chip bag. Nobody bothers removing either.

**H.**

They fall, and it’s okay, because they are holding hands when it happens, so how could it be wrong. But, look –

They are going to the future. Bucky is laughing, delighted at a floating car, and Steve is nowhere to be found – no, look, he is right there. He never sees the registration office, or the poster – _I want you_ , that’s a lie, and he is next to Bucky, just like he is supposed to be.

Bucky goes to war, and Steve never stops trying, but there are always letters left in the mail _Stink of piss. Don’t get into any trouble, punk,_ and he finds a job at the docks that makes him cough like crazy, but there is dinner on the table, and the war is halfway over, anyway. It’s easy to forget that Bucky’s in England and not around the corner, starry-eyed at some girls.

**I.**

Bucky doesn’t come home, but a letter does. They are sorry to inform him but they offer their condolences, and – and.

Steve dreams of running halfway across the world and rushing into Germany with nothing but a shield. He carries Bucky all the way back where he’s supposed to be, the two of them, away from fighting and war and all the messes they’ve picked up, then wakes up and coughs until his sheets are dotted with blood.

**J.**

Steve and Bucky fall in love: in the schoolyard, in their apartment, Steve’s head resting on Bucky’s stomach, Steve sketching and Bucky thinking that he never wants to get up. Steve and Bucky fall in love: in the trenches, crouching side by side until their muscles almost give out, in bed, chests slowing rising and falling, like the bombs outside. They fall in love until Bucky can’t remember anything anymore, and they are standing so far from each other on a bridge. They are in the future, but it is not what either of them thought they wanted it to be.

Steve and Bucky fall in love, and neither of them find a good way to make it without each other, so they stay together until they don’t really know what it would ever feel like to be alone.

**K.**

Steve falls.

Proceed to I, but with different names.

**L.**

Steve sees a ghost. When they are finally there, together, when the mask falls onto pavement, he feels like a ghost himself: because look, it is Bucky, but it is empty, and he is not in there.

**M.**

See: this is how it is. You know what happens next: there is never really a happy ending, but there never is an ending anyway, so you can hardly be blamed. And, look here – here are different ways it plays out, but it is always the same, isn't it: Steve is in Bucky’s arms, and Bucky is on the bridge, no, Steve is on the bridge, and they are both falling. They are always falling. They are still falling. They are in love, and out of love, and fighting wars they didn’t start, but there is only one real ending.

Go to A.

**Author's Note:**

> on tumblr at nystark.


End file.
